Two Soldiers Read Free

bent legs pushed his torso back under the car, arms above his head in the small space behind the grille ( 00:05 ), looking for the red cable that was thin and obvious and attached to the car alarm. As was his habit, he used a small pair of hairdresser’s scissors to cut through the red plastic, then wriggled back out and stood up, the newly sharpened end of a screwdriver into the gas tank lock ( 00:11 ), then a wrench around the screwdriver handle, he turned, could almost hear the air pressure drop, and all the doors opened simultaneously.
    He glanced over toward the exit, raised an arm and got a raised arm back, she was standing there and she was reliable and they were still the only ones there.
    He got into the leather driver’s seat and took a feeler gauge from his bag ( 00:15 ), held it against the cigarette lighter filament, then put it into the ignition and turned, turned, turned, heated it up again, turned again, quickly melted down the small, sharp plastic pegs that would catch the actual locking mechanism ( 00:24 ).
    She raised her arm.
    Voices.
    Steps.
    He felt inside the ignition with a pen ( 00:28 ) and, nothing catching now, took out another car key—any of the ones lying at the bottom of the bag, because older Mercedes generally started once the plastic pegs were gone—and checked the clock ( 00:32 ).
    They didn’t talk much. They never did.
    He had nothing to say to her.
    Gabriel drove out of the shopping center parking lot, and slowly through the southern suburbs of Stockholm in the middle lane. You could see the city behind them, and he accelerated into the outside lane, they were heading north, another forty kilometers to go. They normally stopped at the Shell station by the Täby exit, in front of the square glass booth, for air and water. Wanda normally went into the dirty bathroom around the back and prepared herself for the visit; he went into the shop and got his two bottles of Coke from the fridge and stared at the woman behind the counter, who looked away as he walked out, who never said anything, who knew his sort, had seen too many young men like him, knew that it wasn’t worth risking that arrogant and superior look, to challenge him and ask for eighteen kronor for the drinks in his hand.
    He was sitting in the driver’s seat, radio on full blast, half a bottle of Coke on the dashboard, when she came back from the toilet after twenty minutes. He always tried to check her walking first, see if her movements were normal, then if she had a dirty back from the hard floor—there should be no signs.
    They left the highway and from the exit to Aspsås you could already see the church, the small town, the prison. The almost deserted prison parking lot, he always went as far in as he could, close to the high wall.
    He was eighteen. She was seventeen.
    They didn’t go many places, didn’t often go far, but here, obviously they came here.
    She straightened her jeans, shirt, looked for the mirror on the back of the sun visor that wasn’t there, changed the angle of the one on the door instead and smiled into it, then walked toward the gray concretebuilding as he drove toward the church that loomed a couple of kilometers away—he would wait there until she was ready, by the carefully raked gravel path in front of the rows of headstones in the churchyard.
    The gate in the wall, the intercom by the handle, she turned toward the camera and microphone.
    “ Yes ?”
    It crackled, in the way that all loudspeakers by all prison gates crackle.
    “Visitor.”
    “ Who for ?”
    “Leon Jensen.”
    Someone in a blue uniform ran a nimble finger through a list of registered visitors.
    “ And you are ?”
    “Wanda.”
    “ Surname ?”
    “Wanda Svensson.”
    She was freezing.
    There was no wind, bright sunshine bouncing off the concrete, she was sweating and freezing.
    There was a click. The door was open.
    Heavy steps over to central security and the window and the uniform that belonged to the hands that